i scoured the streets of san francisco looking for it. i had somehow lost the peace pendant my daughter gifted me – it fell off from around my neck and, as we moseyed away from the san fran moma and shopped, i suddenly realized it was gone. i immediately backtracked my steps, even knowing it was not likely i would find it. we all walked with our eyes peeled to the city streets.
as i stepped up onto a curb while crossing a busy street, i saw it. there, in the gutter of the road, lay the pewter peace sign and its chain. i felt a surge of relief finding it, for I truly do treasure the gifts my children have given me and, of course, you know how thready i am.
years ago, the kiddos made a shopping trip to target. together they picked out a tall bamboo vessel with golden and deep red-dyed dried reeds and gave it to me – a gift. it has – since then – continued to have a place in our home. now it stands in the bedroom, between the red and white gingham-checked recliner wing-chair and the jewelry armoire i purchased on marketplace, right in front of the window. in the morning, the sun streams in and sets the reeds aglow. and i think of my beloved children every single time.
i suppose i could be less thready, a tad bit less sentimental. it’s not likely, though.
i could take you on a walk through our house and yard. the stories would not be about the value of objects we have displayed or the name-brand of things we own. the stories would be narratives, tales of experiences we’ve had, of times with others, of things we’ve been gifted, of workarounds, of love delivered in a plant, a candle, a wine holder, hearts, peace signs, a rag-rugged love sculpture, a quilt, of history in a branch, an old table, a window frame, vintage suitcases.
when littlebabyscion had trouble last week – and we had a conversation – me and littlebabyscion – i asked it to hang around longer. and i fully expected it to listen, because i have basically personified that little vehicle since i purchased it. friends from all over wrote to ask how littlebabyscion was, because, well, they know. yeah, less thready is not likely.
this morning was intensely beautiful. with the sun starting to pour in the open windows and all the fans off for the moment – so no white noise – we could hear the birds, the gurgling pond, the airplane flying above. we sipped coffee and dogdog laid on the foot of the bed. there was nothing you could have done to have made it any better. feet tucked under the blankets – for it was still a little cool in the early morning – we were silent.
i memorized it and tucked it away.
that way, another day – when it’s cloudy outside or inside – i could pull it all back and remember, i could let that moment wrap around me once again.
fall has cracked the door open. and, though it may tiptoe around a bit in this teeter-totter season, it will not backtrack. it is on its way.
and nature – in its wisdom – is doing the work, prepping for cold to arrive, stoking up, storing up, guarding its ability to survive, seed heads readying to spread far and wide.
she asked me if i would be recording again. I wasn’t sure how to answer. i don’t know. it has been some time since my last project. recording is expensive and – because of today’s world of streaming – not particularly financially rewarded, making it a kind of skewed investment…heavy on the cost, extraordinarily light on the payoff.
yet, every independent artist knows recording is not solely about the financial reward. it is the expression of what’s inside, just waiting to hit air. it’s doing the work, prepping, stoking, storing, guarding – all for the seed heads to fly.
she asked me other questions as well – how i compose, if i hear music inside. her questions cracked open the door to a conversation I haven’t had in a long time, a real conversation about my music. i felt grateful – not only for her inquisitiveness, but for her obvious support of what i have already produced. it was a sort of balm on a wound that was just lingering, lingering.
I don’t know when – or if – i will produce another album. i’ve teetered-tottered just like the waning of summer and the rising of fall, just like daisies struggling to stay vibrant, open, to stave off utter fallow. i’ve wondered through these last few years if, after fifteen albums, i was “done”, wondered if, at 65, i was no longer relevant, wondered if i still had the necessary chutzpah.
i miss the stage, a piano and a boom vocal mic, a wood apron beneath my boots. i’ve missed telling the stories of songs and the gestures of instrumental piano. i’ve missed eye contact with an audience, finding resonant bits, making people laugh or reminisce, the moment you know they are right there with you.
the daisy seed heads are getting ready. it’s pretty certain they will proliferate gardens again in the spring after their fallow through fall and winter.
maybe – somewhere in here – i am getting ready too. i guess we’ll see.
the glow of the setting sun teased through the grasses out front. autumn is rising.
my old hiking boots are waiting by the back door. soon – and very soon – it will be time to change out of our hiking sandals and back to these boots, worn from many, many miles of trails. we need to replace them. the podiatrist informed us we should purchase new ones every six months or so if we are wearing our boots regularly. since we are artists, this is not quite possible. and so, these circa 2016 boots have graced our feet for the last eight years of hikes. every bit of worn leather, every creak, has a story to tell. someday it will be a tad bit hard to retire them. they have served us well.
today is the first day of school here. i am completely out of sync with these touchstones of time. the trip to target – with school supplies galore – helped place me in time. but with grown children and no direct connection to the school system, we had to look up the district calendar.
a certain wistfulness comes on the breeze with the return of the fall sun. it happens every year. it’s hard to identify, but it is palpable.
i wonder if it is a kind of homesickness – for growing-up times back on long island and for my own days with a backpack – stuffed with textbooks, spirals and new pencils – slung over my shoulder.
i wonder if it is a kind of nostalgia – a yearning – for the times when my children were little, when they picked out new backpacks and pencil cases, gathered their wide-ruled notebooks and glue sticks, colored highlighters and crayons, those days when packing lunches and snacks and waiting for the bus were the defining times of the day.
i wonder if it is the bank of memories i carry – taking my children to college, unpacking into dorm rooms, apartments, toting stuff back and forth, my heart holding dearly to the threads of their childhood while, at the same time, supporting their gossamer winging wings, watching their contrails.
i wonder if it is a kind of longing – a pining for things undone to be done, for things not accomplished to be accomplished, for summer dreams to extend beyond the setting summer sun.
autumn rises and i feel invigorated. these are new times. there is new possibility. i have no idea what is coming but this rising autumnal sun is full of golden light.
golden. light. and my old boots are waiting by the back door.
“the sun shines not on us, but in us.” (john muir)
she said it and i immediately wrote it down. “american women are not stupid,” katty kay (bbc news correspondent) repeated elizabeth warren’s plainspoken words and then added that it should be the new slogan of the harris/walz presidential campaign. i wholeheartedly agree.
she’s absolutely right. american women AREN’T stupid. WOMEN aren’t stupid.
last wednesday the maga presidential candidate amplified a meme featuring two outstanding and accomplished women – hillary clinton and kamala harris. the comment about these two women – on this meme he deliberately shared – was the epitome of crass, vulgar beyond belief. i will not repeat it here. but something in me snapped.
even beyond the access-hollywood hot mic audio recording. even beyond his unending lewd, derogatory, demeaning comments about women. even beyond all the accusations of sexual abuse. even after a jury of his peers found him – this presidential candidate – guilty of sexual assault. even beyond every single other indictment, every single other conviction, every single other thing that disregards the rule of law. this scunge of a man is actually running for president – a position we wish our communities, our nation, our world, our children to hold in esteem – and it is unconscionable.
i have had zero respect for this maga candidate for some time now. his repugnant behavior has not resonated with me, amused me, entertained me or aligned with me one bit. his mean-spiritedness, his narcissistic self-devotion, his quest for autocratic power, his inability to play by the rules. this is a man who objectifies women, a man who sexualizes them, who aggressively degrades them, who sloughs them off, who takes advantage of them, who wants to control them, who sexually abuses them. and now i am sick to death of him. it is beyond the pale that he should even be able to run for the highest office of this land – he lacks any regard for anyone other than himself.
i am a woman. i am a daughter, a mother, a wife, a sister, a girlfriend. i am an aunt, a godmother, a female, a victim of sexual abuse. i am appalled.
women are not stupid. we will not vote for patriarchy, for the annihilation of the rights of women, for wearing skirts for men. it disgusts me to the point of nausea thinking of any woman – ANY woman – casting a precious vote for a man whose wishes are to put women back into their place and to control their bodies, to eliminate the rights of LGBTQ, to trash any racial, gender, religious, socioeconomic equalities we have achieved, to rule with an iron fist.
there is a woman around the block who has a sign that touts “women for [this candidate]“. i wonder every time i see it how it is possible that she supports this misogynistic bigot for president. what – on this good earth – is she thinking?
and so, though i am utterly distressed that any decent human being would support this maga candidacy, i want to specifically ask the women who are waiting to crown maga as leadership a few questions:
is there anyone in your family who is female, besides you? do you want them – as they live their life – to have freedom of opportunity, of decisions that will impact them, their bodies? do you care about their safety? do you care about their futures or do you wish to limit and imperil them?
is there anyone in your family who is LGBTQ? do you care about their rights, about their opportunity for the freedoms you have enjoyed, about their futures? do you care about their safety? do you care about them at all or do you wish to limit and imperil them?
is there anyone in your family who is not white? do you care about the equality that should be bestowed upon them, just like you? do you care about their safety, their futures or do you wish to limit and imperil them?
is there anyone in your family who is a child? do you care about their schooling, about their chance to learn the truth of history, about their free questions and research, about their safety, about their futures or do you wish to limit and imperil them?
is there anyone in your family who does not deserve proper healthcare – whether it is while they are younger or during their senior years? do you care about the social programs of social security and medicare continuing – with the freedom of choice – supporting them in their aging? do you care about their futures or do you wish to limit and imperil them?
is there anyone in your family who you would prevent from seeing the things that this maga candidate is saying, the things this maga candidate has said, the things this maga candidate has done, the crimes this maga candidate has committed, the extreme prejudices and contempt this maga candidate has for others? or are you hoping to emulate these behaviors, hoping that your dear ones emulate this, grow up to be this?
do you actually find this maga choice – unbelievably the person in all the country – this entire nation – that has been lifted up by the maga party as the best of the best – to be acceptable? how is that possible? what is inside your heart that makes this your ideal choice for leadership?
isn’t there reason to believe – a constitutional expectation – that the position of president of the united states of america should be held in the highest esteem, should answer to the highest of powers, should be a person of unparalleled virtue, should not limit or imperil the populace?
you CAN feel it. there is hope in the air. there is light. there is possibility.
i – for one – am very, very, very tired of the darkness we have seen over the last decade. i am weary of the name-calling, the maga bastardizing of the honor of running for or being president, the hook-line-and-sinker of people who are in the trickle-down of mean-spiritedness, of incoherent narcissism, of a vector heading to autocracy.
i can feel the light and i am standing in it, proudly.
last saturday night i had an event that seemed in every way to be a heart event. for a half hour – in the wee hours of the night – i struggled with intense pain, wondering if there was a way that i could lessen it, wondering what to do. though i don’t necessarily feel 65, i know that i am 65 and so i was frightened.
we went to the ER to make sure this was not an emergency and, gratefully, the tests all came out fine. the mystery will be one for my personal physician and i to solve. but there is a learning – as always – here.
there is way too much darkness. in the middle of saturday night, while laying in bed thinking about life itself, i knew that the lesson presenting itself – the wisdom repeating itself – was none too small.
we have one opportunity to live this life. we can either live it ugly or live it with as much goodness as we can muster. we can greet each dawn with hope and light and generous possibility or we can perpetuate the dark of night, starless and with evil in our hearts.
i can feel it – this new hope surging through our nation. i can feel the energy, the light, a wide-open future full of wonder and blessed by simply breathing.
this trickle-down – of freedom and good intention – is contagious. the joy of the harris/walz campaign – the humanity of the harris/walz campaign – the spirit of the harris/walz campaign is washing over us.
and for that – and for sunday morning and each morning since – i am grateful.
dogga adores watermelon. he also adores blueberries and carrots. he’s a big fan of any kind of chip, cracker or cheese. really, any dog-safe morsel of people food – except bananas – are in his taste-treat wheelhouse. he finds us easy to convince – those eyes of his – complete amber eye-to-eye contact.
back in the day, when i lived in florida, you could find watermelon at many rural corners, much like boiled peanut stands – a pick-up truck with a bed filled with watermelons fresh off the vine for buyers to choose from. i remember breaking open melons, sticky sweet, a tiny bit cooler than the air temperature. these last few days here in wisconsin remind me of those hot summer days down south, with nights that don’t cool down and humidity lingering so much in the air you can see it. chilled watermelon helps.
in the olden days (as my poppo used to refer back) watermelons had seeds. lots of them. you’d stand out back on the patio or on the deck spitting pits over the railing – contests of whose would gain the most ground. now, we are lucky – seedless watermelons have changed life, like seedless mandarins. no more contests over the deck rail, but so much easier to eat. ahh, the end of the folksy tradition of the watermelon-seed-spit. probably not a big loss.
dogga will accept any treat he is offered. he clearly trusts that we will keep his well-being and his people-food tastes in mind, so when i cut up the watermelon the other day into bite-sized pieces, he was right there, by my side, waiting. it’s his summer too.
but time doesn’t stand still. we simply cannot believe that it is labor day weekend already. the summer flew by. and soon, a bit later on, we will be barreling through fall. it’ll be time for apple-picking and pumpkins, jeans and boots and vests. part of me yearns for that – autumn – my favorite time of year.
but watermelon is plentiful right now, and, so, our moments will include dabbing our napkins on our watermelon-slice-sticky faces in the middle of these hot summer days, these days of intense heat.
dogga doesn’t seem to have yearnings for later-on. somehow he knows that any time at all is too precious to waste. his wisdom is in his absolute presence. whether it is watermelon time or apple time or cranberry time or blueberry time…it doesn’t matter. he is just there – appreciating all the wanna-bites of the season.
so in the middle of winter – when it’s frigid outside and we humans are wishing for a little warmth while dogga is relishing the piles of snow – we may summon up these days in the sun. hopefully, even in our baselayers, wool socks and down coats, we might taste the summer we – hopefully – memorized. we might close our eyes and remember the sweetness of cold watermelon.
or, because this world is what it is and we are fortunate beyond belief to be able to purchase produce from nations and places far and wide, we may buy a watermelon – in the cold of winter – from the grocery store. we’ll take out the big carving knife and the cutting board and slice it into triangles, with great anticipation. and we’ll take a bite of the top of the triangle, easily the best bite of all melon bites.
and we’ll be back – standing in the hot sun, with sticky hands. because watermelon has that power. even without seeds.
“all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. all things wise and wonderful, ’twas god that made them all.” (cecil francis alexander/edwin george monk/george mcbeth mcphee)
the striking thing about this song – a hymn in the united methodist hymnal i played from for many years as a minister of music – is the use of the word all.
whatever deity you may subscribe to, whatever you call a greater power, whatever your heart-faith attaches to, all things count, all creatures great and small.
i glanced up while at the sink washing a few dishes. and there, on the white trim next to the window, was this katydid. she didn’t seem to feel in peril – and she wasn’t. my first reaction was surprise. my second reaction was wondering how to safely remove her and place her out in the garden, where she might find leaves or flowers to munch, maybe drink from a fallen raindrop.
“each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings. he made their glowing colors and. made their tiny wings.”
it is not our first inclination to eliminate that which is different, that – because of size difference – which is helpless. we try – in most cases – to help the tiniest find its way. this katydid was lost in our house and likely would not have survived if we hadn’t found it and if we weren’t helping it along. it somehow feels like the same story as us – here in the universe. we are but tiny specks of dust, floating, floating, in a galaxy of stars and planets, lost and found, lost and found.
“the purple headed mountains, the rivers running by, the sunset and the morning that brightens up the sky.”
it is up to us to take notice, to care for – across our land, around our world – the extraordinarily large and the astonishingly tiny.
we are all here together.
and i hope that if someday we are lost, someone will gently pick us up and carry us to the garden so that we, too, might munch on flowers, drink raindrops and breathe fresh air available to all creatures great and small.
we planted in the spirit of ‘you will always harvest what you plant’. we trusted that – with water, weeding, solicitous care – we might harvest peppers. even without ever growing peppers before. even in our ignorance of the task at hand. the thing we leaned into was just that – that we would harvest what we planted.
if you plant joy, you will harvest joyful. if you plant despair, you will harvest the despairing. if you plant aid, you will harvest the empowered. if you plant lack, you will harvest the suffering. if you plant the embrace of the ideals of goodness and kindness, humankind will join hands. if you plant retribution and rage-filled revenge, you will stoke the fear and anger of vengeful enemies. it seems an easy equation, an easy conditional statement.
we are in a time of planting. what we plant now will have ramifications for all time to come. regardless of whether we will be here or not to witness the-time-to-come, it would seem our responsibility to plant virtue. for out of virtue, a future will flourish. out of virtue, a future will provide the opportunity of growth for all who follow. out of virtue, integrity will be cherished, valued, expected.
we have had three jalapeño peppers so far. i’ve saved two to make ann’s popper recipe. we have had a dozen red snack peppers. we’ve munched on them and included them in our salad. we have about two dozen red chili peppers on that plant so far. i’m not sure what we’ll do with those yet, though making red chili pepper flakes seems obvious. we’ve noted that we need take care and wear protective gloves when working with these peppers.
it’s interesting that we didn’t think about these red chilis ahead of time. we merely liked the look of the plant and bought it, bringing it home to transplant into a clay pot and place on our potting stand. but you harvest what you plant and they are wildly successful, these tiny hot peppers.
next year we will plant peppers again. but we will choose differently and with more forethought. we will plant more jalapeños, more snack peppers, maybe some bells, maybe some banana peppers. we likely won’t plant more red chilis – this harvest will be the last of that.
i would think that, for each of the things we plant, we have some due consideration, that we think of the application or wastefulness of the harvest, that we seriously mull over the heat of the fruit.
it would be an understatement to say we were excited to see a frog in our pond again. we’d been waiting and then gave up. it’s a tiny pond – and it has attracted a frog for many years save a couple – but it has been an extraordinarily hot summer and we thought it possible that we would never see one in our backyard watering hole this year.
and yet, there it was. we cheered and, later, before we turned on the last night of the democratic national convention, toasted his existence.
we named him DeeNCee Lullabaloo – after both the DNC and the lull in which we have dedicated ourselves. DeeNCee, for short, though his whole name is ridiculously fun to say aloud.
way back when, it was helen who told us what it meant to have a frog – “fully rely on God,” she said, encouraging us to trust in hope and what was to come. since that first frog, life has been a real mash-up of stuff that has happened. but every frog that has turned up – each spring or summer or early fall – has been another sign of hope, another small miracle. for each one we have been grateful and a little bit astounded.
DeeNCee showed up on thursday, the same day that kamala harris accepted the democratic nomination to run for president.
the convention had been unbelievably exciting to that point…speakers and performers and politicians all stoking the flame of hope, the sprinkles of joy everywhere, light – a part of our future.
until a mere few weeks ago, it all looked rather bleak, a country destined to fall under the leadership of those who aren’t truly concerned about e pluribus unum, those who want complete and utter power and control, those who do not deserve such a honorable task as to lead this nation.
and then…then…hope, light and joy burst forward and suddenly there is a chance for our gay son to marry, our daughter to continue to be in charge of her own body, our great-nieces and great-nephews to enjoy racial equality, our younger neighbors to benefit from affordable, sustaining healthcare, our older neighbors to enjoy retirement and healthcare through social security, medicare and their choice of medicare supplemental plans. the list of possibilities is lengthy and the GOP – which is self-destructing – tries to misrepresent what is possible, tries to evade real questions about project 2025 and agenda 47 intentions, tries to bully their way in their desire to push the populace into a dark cave.
but we are alive and we are voiced and we have energy and stamina and longevity.
DeeNCee Lullabaloo showed up at the right time – to help celebrate the convention and its promise and to remind us to be in the lull, a place of peace and hope, a place of light and joy, a place where we might soak in the wisdom of a higher power – whatever we choose to call that deity.
in our tiny pond DeeNCee will sunbathe and eat bugs, swim and hop – thrive – in freedom.
and in our country, we humans will also thrive – all of us in freedom.
time to speak up. time to own what you have pondered, researched, debated, lost sleep over. time to honestly consider the choice and its true ramifications. time to think beyond yourself and reflect upon the legacy you are choosing. time to weigh in on the qualifications, the integrity, the character of the candidates. time to deliberate good and evil. time.
we have not remained silent. we have spoken and written and cartooned. we will continue to do so. because it is – indeed – time to take action.
our precious votes will not be squandered on a candidate whose sole focus is himself. they will not be spent on a man who lacks basic humanness, whose criminal and monstrous behaviors demonstrate his ambitions. they will not support a party that has eaten itself alive, that has become pistol-focused on autocracy, on mean-spiritedness, that would have the audacity to use name-calling and underhanded bitter tirades to represent itself. they will not be cast for a ticket that quashes the freedom of women and LGBTQ, that deliberately builds up the rich and ignores those in need, that slashes equality for race, gender, religion, orientation, that has intentional plans for undermining the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all in this country, all entering this country. these precious and important votes of ours will not buy into the repugnance of maga and its hideous scheme for the future. no.
instead, our votes – this opportunity, this responsibility, to participate in the future of the united states of america – will be cast with the honor and respect and diligence due them. they will be educated, considered, based on researched fact, leaning into joy and hope for future generations, looking toward light instead of bleak darkness.
there is no choice here. there is only one worthy candidate.
and though i would – with absolute certainty in my mind and heart – vote AGAINST maga, i, instead, will vote FOR the democratic ticket. i will vote FOR kamala harris and tim walz . i will vote for kindness and the community of this country. i will vote for democracy.
and i will take action each day to help the future of this country for us, for our daughter and son and their partners, for our friends and extended family regardless of their votes, for our town, our state, this nation and the world.
the choice is obvious. i am not going back to the stifling, suffocating, unconscionable ugliness of what we have seen – what we see – from maga.
reverse threading 